Business Focus, Part 1; Business Roundtable
Taina Litwak (moderator), Sally Bensusen, Paul Mirocha, John Norton

Back by popular request, this panel discussion includes four top-notch illustrators having a century of free-lance business experience between them. They will each speak briefly on a topic of general concern, leaving plenty of time for audience questions.

Sally Bensusen—Time management is an important ingredient in every business. How much time do you set aside to improve your skill set? To advertise? To check in with established clients? To find new ones? To take a trip to the museum? They say that education is expensive. But how much will it cost you if you don’t invest time for important tasks? Taking the time to learn new skills, for instance, is not a paying venture when you’re free-lance. No one pays the bills while you’re learning something new. How much time do you spend improving your business, staying fresh and keeping up with changing times? How much would you be willing to give up if you don’t?

Taina Litwak—There are a host of specializations within the field of scientific/medical illustration. Finding a niche (or 2) can be pivotal to developing and maintaining a successful business. Balancing the kind of work you might prefer with what may be more readily available may be necessary. Location can play a role. Building and maintaining a stable client – it CAN work. You CAN make a decent living as a free-lance illustrator and business person.

John Norton—It is a rare business that can simply survive, much less grow, without effective advertising. It must follow that good self promotion is an integral part of being a successful free-lance illustrator. Sometimes a free-lancer IS lucky enough to be specifically tracked down by a client; however, if your only strategy is to wait for clients to come looking for you, they may well come across someone else’s self promotional efforts first and do business with them, rather than you. Whether you have an on-line portfolio (such as offered by our own Science-Art.com), set up your own web site, personally send out your own PR packets, advertise in a printed directory or enlist the services of a rep, self promotion is crucial to survival of a free-lancer.

Paul Mirocha—A Simple Business Plan, An Oxymoron? So, after 10 years of you’ve finally told your employer to take your job and... well give it to some other poor dude. Congratulations, you are now the owner of a creative business. You have made the ultimate investment in yourself. You are the CEO, the employees, the shareholders, and the janitor. Your grandmother asks you if you have a job. Your drinking buddies ask you how much you make. Your client asks you how much you charge. What do you say? Now’s the time to realize what your old boss used to do for you. You’ll find out the real meaning of formerly philosophical concepts like a business plan. Just what are those employee-related expenses, overhead costs? And most of all, what are those mystical terms, “break-even point, profit margin, equity factor?” It’s all part of life and somebody has to know what it all means. Why not you? We’ll go over a simple free-lancer’s business plan, determine what you should make, what are your expenses, and how much you will charge to achieve your long-term goal of making a living as an artist.

Business Focus, Part 2; Pricing Clinic
Taina Litwak (moderator), Sally Bensusen, Paul Mirocha, John Norton

We all face one endless question: How do you price your work? What exactly did someone get for that eyepopping cover? What did they get for that series of black and white line pieces? For use on a Web site? During this slide show/workshop you will be presented with a series of images and the parameters under which they were produced. Attendees will then estimate what the artist got for the work. The actual prices will be given after the show and there will be time for discussion.

Earth Wind & Fire: The World of 3D Terrain Rendering
David Fierstein, Britt Griswold, Frank Ippolito, Amelia Janes
Level: Intermediate

This team will present an overview of the powerful software tools available to the natural science illustrator who need to represent the natural world. While the earliest digital desktop tools often fell short of realistic and (more importantly) controllable results, illustrators now have a suite of tools that can create high quality renders of landscapes, skies, water, and even fire. NOTE: This will be a four hour track which will be broken down into four one-hour segments.
First Britt will show how programs such as Bryce, Terragen, Vue4, and MojoWorld can be used to render convincing landforms, complete with realistic, altitude sensitive ground texture, foliage, and even season-specific sunlight.
Frank will then pick up the thread by exploring a range of programs and plug-ins that are designed to represent complex and dynamic systems such as running water, billowing clouds, and burning flame.
Amelia will bring us back down to earth again and show how we can combine easily accessible DEM satellite data with traditional shaded relief techniques to produce landscapes that are both realistic AND accurate.
Finally David will pull the whole mix together and show how a working illustrator might tackle the challenges of an assignment that requires compositing landscapes with 3D architectural, mechanical, or biological renderings.
The software discussed will range from the playful and quirky package called Bryce to the professional 3-D Geographic Information System (GIS) known as World Construction Set. Other programs include Adobe AfterEffects, Maya, Lightwave, and Leveller. 3D basics, intermediate techniques, as well as a wealth of advanced tips will be covered throughout this 4 hour track.